Lawdy - possible meanings

There is the Paul McCartney song "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" - I was wondering whether any meaning was attached to "lawdy" and/or does it stand for "lady"?

Below a quote gleaned on the internet, for what it is worth (not my words, I hasten to add): "Cause, you know baby… when I …. Kiss yoooooooooo…. It’s not the same as when yoooooo…..are kissing me……Oh lawdy….”

You're correct, pan. Perhaps you recall the famous line from Gone with the Wind: "Lawdy, Miz Scarlett, I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies!" Lawdy is supposed to approximate the way black slaves in the antebellum South would have pronounced lordy.

You're correct, pan. Perhaps you recall the famous line from Gone with the Wind: "Lawdy, Miz Scarlett, I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' no babies!" Lawdy is supposed to approximate the way black slaves in the antebellum South would have pronounced lordy.

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I think everyone said "lawdy." The word does not strike me as a former slave word. In the mountains in the South, where there were few slaves and today have an almost entirely white population, you still hear "laws," as in "lawdy, laws" and more typically, "oh, laws." Though I've seen the latter in nineteenth century children's novels.

I think everyone said "laws." The word does not strike me as a former slave word. In the mountains in the South, where there were few slaves and today have an almost entirely white population, you still hear "laws," as in "lawdy, laws" and more typically, "oh, laws." Though I've seen the latter in nineteenth century children's novels.

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I'm pretty sure that in the novel Gone with the Wind, Prissy said "Lawdy." Not sure whether Margaret Mitchell had white characters using this expression as well. I can check. I've never heard "Lawdy, laws" but I haven't spent much time in the South.

I'm pretty sure that in the novel Gone with the Wind, Prissy said "Lawdy." Not sure whether Margaret Mitchell had white characters using this expression as well. I can check. I've never heard "Lawdy, laws" but I haven't spent much time in the South.

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I had a typo which I've corrected--I meant that I think everyone said "lawdy." Though I also think they said "laws," and so on.

But I'll continue, just for posterity--Prissy does say "lawdy" in the movie, though she does not in the book. About whether the white characters say "lawdy"--they don't. But I've never found Gone with the Wind, book or movie, a historically realistic representation of, well, anything.

Mitchell writes the Prissy's speech thus: Fo' Gawd, Miss Scarlett!... Ah--Ah--Miss Scarlett, Ah doan know nuthin' 'bout bringin' babies. Maw
wouldn' nebber lemme be 'round folkses whut wuz havin' dem. Scarlett's pronunciation of "Lord" would have been pretty close to if not the exact same as "lawd" (though in the book she thinks, "May the Lord damn Prissy."). Yet she replies thus:You black liar--what do you mean? You've been saying you knew
everything about birthing babies. What is the truth? Tell me!
For the most part Scarlett's written idiolect does not reflect any accent, and the reader is meant to imagine some charming Southern drawl, which, opposed to Prissy's idiolect, would have reflected a white linguistic superiority. So we're talking about linguicism and racism. We could rewrite Scarlett's words to reflect her actual speech. While it would be a little different than the slave dialect, it would resemble the slaves' speech more than Mitchell would have been comfortable with.

So anyway, I only meant to question the word's origin or even mental association as a slave word. I think it's only that people would have been more likely to write it phonetically as such.